"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Friday, May 01, 2009

The Audacity of Dope

Remember when Arlen Specter defected to the Democrats and that gave them a magickal filibuster-proof majority and now they were really gonna change some shit? Yeah, that was awesome.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced legislation in the Senate Thursday which would allow homeowners in bankruptcy to renegotiate -- or cramdown -- mortgages with banks.

....

The measure is widely expected to fail, as crucial Democratic senators, whose votes are needed to overcome a filibuster, have publicly declared their opposition.

Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Jon Tester have indicated they plan to vote against the amendment.

....

The banking and real estate industry has funneled roughly $2,000,000 into Landrieu's campaign coffers over her 12-year career, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Bayh has taken in about $3.5 million. The financial sector is Nelson's biggest backer; he's taken $1.4 million from banks and real estate interests and another $1.2 million from insurance firms. Tester has fielded roughly half a million in his two years in office.

That's about nine million dollars -- far, far less than one percent of the amount taxpayers have spent to bail out the financial industry.

Specter also voted against the bill, by the way. Gee, that didn't take long. Talk about your return on investment. Not sure how "Once bought, stays bought" shakes out in Latin, but it's as good a national motto as any.

The Democrats may want to be careful about getting what they wished for, because 60 votes leaves them with no fucking excuse for this kind of shit. Assholes like Nelson and Landrieu are DINOs anyway, and always have been. The supermajority just makes them slightly more transparent for the few folks who hadn't already noticed. This is a party with less discipline than your average cheerleader squad. Forget the magic number of sixty, these clowns couldn't even get a simple majority. What kind of weak-ass flaccid bullshit is that?

At the very least, maybe this will debunk some of the teabagger myths of a sinister Democrat conspiracy to socialize the country. The finance sector owns them, and they don't have the balls or the party discpline to buck that influence. These people could fuck up a shit sandwich; exactly how are they supposed to go about confiscating everyone's guns and socializing their assets?